Wild Pigs Overrun Hawaiian Mountains

When most of us hear the name "Arnold," what probably comes to mind is the former bodybuilder turned movie star turned Governor of California. Television viewers from the 1960s and 1970s will probably remember another Arnold, namely Arnold Ziffel from the show "Green Acres." Yup, Arnold was a pig. A really smart one. And he has become so famous (or infamous) that he even rates a page on Wikipedia. What is this world coming to?

Anyway, this isn't about Arnold Schwarzenegger nor Ziffel. But it is about pigs. Wild pigs. Also known as feral pigs. In Hawaii, wild pigs have proliferated to the point that our mountains are overrun with them.

One of my avocations is hiking, and there's hardly a hike I go on where I don't come upon the signs of pig presence: dug up ground, muddy wallows, and putrid, fly-infested pig dung. And coming upon a wild pig or two has occurred with some regularity, too. Now bear in mind that although they are blind as a white cat with a blue eye, pigs have a keen sense of smell and an equally keen sense of hearing. Or so say pig hunters I have met.

That being the case, pigs will likely flee well before I come upon them because they'll hear me or smell me (and when I'm hiking, I really do smell-or so says my wife).

So why have I come upon so many pigs during recent sojourns into the mountains? The answer, though only anecdotal, is that the hills are just crawling with these porcine characters.

And pig sightings have not just been along mountain trails. With increasing frequency local newspapers carry stories of pigs invading people's properties. Recently, while I was jogging through a community botanical gardens near my home, two wild pigs bolted across the road in front of me. And on several occasions, I have seen feral pigs rooting along the grassy shoulder of a busy local highway, seemingly oblivious to cars zipping by. Not too long ago, one of those cars zipping by was captained by my wife, who stopped her vehicle to come to the rescue of a wild baby pig that had been surrounded by a pack of dogs. She even brought the little porker home, much to my chagrin. The pig ended up dying, llikely from shock, but that's another story.

So what's the problem with pigs in the mountains, short of startling a passing hiker or two or digging up someone's backyard vegetable patch? Well, first of all, the pigs, in their ongoing quest to find something to eat, love to dig up the forest understory to find worms and roots and such. And when there are a lot of pigs doing this, whole chunks of land and mountain slopes are stripped of vegetation.

And guess what happens when it rains? Mud and muck, normally filtered by vegetation on mountainsides and forest floors, are swept downslope into streams. And the mud-filled streams flow to the ocean. And the mud settles into offshore bays, onto coral in these bays, stunting coral growth and in some cases killing it. And when the coral dies, the fish go away or die, too. Just check out the offshore waters of a Hawaiian island after a heavy rainstorm. Brown, not blue. Try snorkeling around some of our nearshore reefs. Not many fish there. And there are economic and ecological impacts as well, says ScienceNOW Daily News.

Well, you get the picture.

While it is true that although the wild pig population explosion isn't the only nor the prime factor leading to the destruction of ocean habitat, there is an impact nonetheless, and something has to be done.

Fortunately, Hawaii has an active pig hunting community. Here on the island where I live, one of the primary hunting groups is the O'ahu Pig Hunters Association, members of which are undoubtedly happy about the proliferation and head to the mountains in earnest in search of quarry.

But the main goal of these hunters is to hunt to put food on the table. And they hope to keep doing so ad infinitum. Hunters, at least the ones I know, are not advocates of eradication. And even if they were, the pig population in the mountains has such vast tracts of remote, rugged territory to do their damage. Even worse, they may have proliferated to a point that eradication or even population control might be impossible.

I'm not sure what will happen with our porker infestation problem in Hawaii. But if the pigs are as terminator-proof as Arnold of California and as intelligent as Arnold of Acres Green, and if we humans continue to play dumb, then pigs may rule someday.